Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Good Woman of Setzuan, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
The Pursuit of Goodness
Greed, Capitalism, and Corruption
Women and Dual Identities
Humanity vs. The Divine
Summary
Analysis
Back in Wong’s den, the gods again come to him in a dream. Wong tells the gods that Shen Te is in grave trouble—she has taken “the rule about loving thy neighbor” too seriously. Wong suggests Shen Te is too good for this world and he asks the gods to intervene. The first god declares that they are done intervening in human matters—he points out a black eye that the third god received from meddling in a fight the other day.
Wong knows just how deeply Shen Te is embroiled in her bad situation with Yang Sun, the old couple, Shu Fu, and Shui Ta. The gods, however, have learned their lessons about helping humans—it never turns out well.
Themes
When Wong declares that Shen Te may lose her shop, however, the third god asks if they should help after all. The first god insists that “the gods help those who help themselves.” The second god says they should try to help anyway. The third god admits that they have not found any other good people on Earth. The heavier the burden on Shen Te, the first god suggests, the greater her strength will become—and the better she will prove herself to be. The first god promises that everything will turn out all right. The gods disappear.
